Dreaming of a blissful summer holiday, complete with sunshine, culture and cocktails? Us too! Well today we’re getting a little closer to the heat of some overseas sun as we relive the gorgeous wedding day of Ala and Anisa.

Picking Antalya in Turkey, as the ideal destination for their big day, Ala and Anisa did the majority of the wedding planning and decision making from their home in Sheffield.

Deciding to keep things simple, yet beautiful, Ala and Anisa didn’t go all out on details and décor, instead letting the setting speak for itself and capturing its beauty with a pre-ceremony shoot around the streets of Antalya, resulting in some fabulous photography. In particular we love the image of Anisa sitting on the colourful steps – talk about pretty!

anisa says: We decided we wanted to get married not long after we got to know each other. After meeting we continued our friendship over a distance for more than a year. As we are both so close to our families we spent a few months getting to know each other’s families first, then once we received the blessing from our parents, Ala proposed and we were married three months later! The proposal wasn’t a surprise but the ring certainly was!

The date of the wedding was 28th December 2015. As we were having an overseas wedding we thought it would be better to plan it for in the winter holidays. The timing of the wedding was perfect – it wasn’t too hot or too cold. Actually the weather was like a British summer and everyone really appreciated the vitamin D!

We got married in Antalya, Turkey. We chose to get married in Turkey as we wanted both sets of families and friends to be able to get to the wedding easily. It is also a beautiful country and Antalya, in particular, has stunning coastline. Ala has spent many holidays in Turkey with amazing memories so we knew we would have a great time there. Most of our friends and family came a few days earlier and stayed a few days after the wedding so combined the wedding with a mini-holiday for themselves. Turkey is also cheap enough to have a really good time without worrying about expenses!

The hotel we got married in, Akra Barut, was really stunning and accommodated all our needs. This was really important as we mostly organised the wedding from our home in Sheffield!

We had a Baha’i wedding. Baha’i weddings have no set formula and are so flexible that they can accommodate any cultural preferences while holding a sacred religious element too. The only stipulation is for husband and wife to recite “We will all verily, abide by the Will of God” in the presence of two witnesses. Then the marriage certificate in signed and the marriage is official!